It is the interior of this church that should be admired. Here I do
not experience the same commotion of the spirit as in Notre Dame. I am
bathed in the fine light of the sixteenth century. At Notre Dame it
was the shadow of Rembrandt; here, it is the clear tonality of French
painting, of a Clouët. Admirable is the _élan_ of this Renaissance
nave; it is as bold as, and even perhaps bolder than that of the Gothic
buildings. It proceeds on the same plan. The skyward lift is only to
be found in the Gothic; it is of the very spirit of the race. Are the
vaults round and no longer pointed? What does it matter if they are
equally elegant, if they have the same aërial grace as the ogive?
What I rediscover in Saint-Eustache, less austere than its grand sister
of the Middle Age, but with a sweetness which is itself noble, is
the determination of the architect to subordinate everything to the
effect of simplicity, to the total effect. On each side of the nave
the columns cutting the side wall are disposed fanwise in order to
hide the light of the lateral windows. One sees nothing but the stone,
and yet there is no effect of heaviness; one could not make anything
lighter. This is because the color of the stone is admirably varied by
the diversity of the flutings that line the columns. The main fluting
marks the outline, and the others, less emphatic, shading off, give it
a velvet-like quality. The light throws a golden haze between the great
columns, among the deep gorges, and is, on the other hand, channeled,
streaked by the little nerves that impel it upward toward the vaults.
By this effect of lightness the building seems to rise; it is an
assumption. It is no longer the forest of trees that one finds here,
but the forest of creepers. These vertiginous columns are like fine,
delicate vines. Above the altar the great lights of the windows, with
their beautiful glass, harmonize well with the general color. The light,
at once abundant and restrained, has the coolness which the Renaissance
recaptured from Greece. This church welcomes one as with an immense
smile; it has the sweetness of Christ holding out his hands: "Suffer the
little children to come unto me." Intelligence has planned it, but it is
the heart that has modeled it.
If we enter Saint-Eustache at nightfall, we could almost believe
ourselves in a Gothic building. The Renaissance did not bring about such
profound transformations in architecture as people think. There is a
heavy Italian Renaissance element that is altogether alien to us; but
in the true French Renaissance the Celtic taste was not betrayed: it
was modified with a certain grace and elegance. Grace is an aspect of
strength. A nation no more escapes from its racial quality than a man
from his temperament. The Celtic mingled with the Roman produced the
Romance, out of which the Gothic sprang directly--the Romance, that is
to say, the Roman which has passed through the spirit of the Franks. It
has the severity, the Roman qualities, united with the imagination of
the Barbarians, since we have agreed so to call them. The Romance of the
second epoch has already sprung forth; it rises during the eleventh and
twelfth centuries and goes to make the Gothic. The Gothic elevates and
magnifies the Romance. It detaches the buttresses, even to the point of
separating them from the walls, in order to carry them further out to
sustain the height of the nave.
As for the Renaissance, it continues the Gothic. We could not have a
more striking example of this than just here in Saint-Eustache. Here
are the same lines, the same idea, with a different ornamentation.
It is the same body, clothed in a new way. It is another age of the
Gothic; sweeter, less powerful, the final florescence of the French
genius, which, despite the adorable eighteenth century, follows a
descending path down to the first restoration. Contrary to what has
been thought and taught for so long, the Renaissance already marks
a stage of decadence. The most beautiful epoch in architecture and
sculpture is the Middle Age, an age as beautiful as, perhaps more
beautiful than, the great age of Greece, and almost universally despised
by our nineteenth century, the century of criticism and pretension, the
century of ignorance. Yes, with the Renaissance things begin to give
way. And yet to say that is almost a sacrilege! It is as if one struck
one's father! Our ravishing Gothic of the sixteenth century has charmed
France with its masterpieces; it has made artists cherish a whole
country, the sweet country of the Loire. Despite its misalliance with
the Italian Renaissance, it stood firm, it did not bend; it remained the
grand French style. Witness the Louvre with its high pavilions; that
sprang, that too, from the Gothic vein; the sculptors of the Renaissance
decorated it less severely, but the general aspect remains the same.
The Gothic under different names has been the main path of our genius
during five hundred years. It has been the blessing of France; it was
its active principle down to 1820. If we wish to return to art it will
only be through comparative study--the comparison with nature of our
national style. The beautiful lines are eternal. Why are they used so
little?